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Japan's Yokogawa Electric tabs Sprint for global network

American telecom Sprint (NYSE: S) and equipment vendor IBM (NYSE: IBM) flexed their international muscles with a pair of overseas contracts that showed a growing need for network infrastructure and cloud-based services.

Japanese electrical engineering and software company Yokogawa Electric tabbed Sprint as its global network provider, depending on MPLS and IP circuits from the carrier as well as its overall managed network solutions. Meanwhile, IBM said that Croatian telecom Terrakom would use its cloud-based hosting services to provision private, public and hybrid cloud infrastructures.

Sprint's network and pricing simplicity was important but its personnel tipped the scales in Yokogawa's selection process, said Satoshi Ioroi, group leader, Global Network, MIS Dep. 2, Management Information Systems HQ, in a Sprint press release.

"While Sprint's pricing was simple and their solution was the most flexible among bidders while meeting all of our requirements, the 'people' aspect was the most important factor for selecting Sprint," Ioroi said. "We've had too many unfortunate experiences with bad support and poor operation when selecting a carrier based on just price or technology. from the start, my team and I were sold on the Sprint sales team … with their swift, accurate and customer support, they are folks we knew we could trust."

Terrakom determined that the IBM Flex system would help it enter a new market segment serving clients from big retail chains and insurance companies to universities and individual subscribers, according to an IBM press release.

"Earlier this year we entered a market segment which is new for us--managed server and Web hosting services. To tap the growth opportunities in this area after a thorough testing process we selected IBM Flex Systems," said Andrej Kalanovic, a member of Terrakom 's management board, noting that the carrier "put special focus on IBM's system management features, energy and space savings."

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